


Love, Ted

by caffeine_and_showtunes



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:46:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24438403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caffeine_and_showtunes/pseuds/caffeine_and_showtunes
Summary: A quarantine AU where the events of tgwdlm never happened. Ted gets stuck delivering groceries to the professor's house one week when Emma can't make it and he gets more than he bargained for.This is a choose your own adventure book, so at the end of each chapter there will be a choice and you can vote in the comments as to what the characters are up to next.
Relationships: Henry Hidgens & Ted, Henry Hidgens/Ted
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Love, Ted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ted delivers groceries to Emma's professor and is surprised to find he doesn't hate it.

Ted had rolled his eyes at Emma when she suggested he bring groceries to her old professor, but had ended up doing so anyways because Emma was Paul's girlfriend, and right now, he needed to stay on good terms with Paul more than anything. Two weeks into the nationwide quarantine, and Paul was the only one who had bothered to even reach out to Ted. In fact, Paul was pretty much the only person Ted talked to. If he was going to make it through quarantine, he needed that. 

Ted begrudgingly picked up the groceries at a local supermarket where the professor had placed the order online. The market offered a delivery service, but it cost more and Emma thought it was best for the professor to have some human interaction with people he knew, so she stuck with the curbside pickup and delivered the boxes of food herself. There were four boxes total, which Ted had to load into his car on his own. They were heavy, mostly filled with vegetables and wines. 

Unfortunately, google maps glitched out on Ted and he got lost on the way, driving an extra 20 minutes to find his way back to roads he knew, and the. Another 10 to get to the professor's house from there. He drove up the long driveway and tied the bandana he had been using as a mask around his face. He hadn't bothered buying a mask. He wasn't going anywhere and he didn't know how long this would even last. What was the point? If it lasted longer than a couple weeks he would get one. 

He knocked on the door of the professor's house, holding the smallest of the boxes under his arm. There was a clamor inside and an eternity later, the door opened revealing an attractive man with graying hair and a maroon face mask. Ted had been expecting some old decrepit professor Emma had taken pity on, but neither old nor decrepit were words that could possibly describe this man. Ted wasn't sure there was a word that could describe him accurately. He looked at Ted with stone cold eyes. "That bandana is doing shit to stop spreading COVID."

Ted rolled his eyes and held out the box of groceries to the man. "If I get it, I get it," he said with a shrug. "No one gives a damn, least of all me."

"Masks aren't supposed to protect you," the professor said bitterly, grabbing the box. "They protect the people around you in case you carry it. Not wearing a mask doesn't mean you don't care if you get sick. It means you don't care about the lives of everyone around you."

Ted suddenly felt very guilty. He tried to shrug it off. "'After today you won't ever have to see me again, so I guess you're safe."

The professor wasn't amused. "Hold on." He disappeared back into the house and a few minutes later reappeared holding a rainbow mask. "Put that on."

"Why is it rainbow?" Ted asked. 

"I've been sewing them for my students. Lots don't have easy access so some professors started making them to mail to our students. A bunch wanted pride flag masks so of course they came to the gay professor."

"Ah." Ted didn't understand at all, but he pretended to and begrudgingly put on the rainbow mask. 

"It's unbelievable how many different shades of red and pink I had to order online to appease the lesbians."

Ted let out a forced chuckle and tried to steer the conversation away from the topic of lesbians. "There are three more boxes in the car. I'll go grab them."

"Let me help."

"If you want to." 

Ted and the professor grabbed the last of the boxes and carried them inside. "Thank you," the professor said once the boxes were inside. "I'm sorry Emma put you through this. I keep telling her it's unnecessary."

"Oh, I don't mind," Ted interrupted.

"Even so, I am a grown man capable of taking care of myself, and unless you count being a dumbass theater kid as an underlying condition, I think I'm perfectly safe."

"You like theater?"

He shrugged. "I could give less of a crap about plays, but musical theater ..." he sighed. "If my parents hadn't pushed me so hard into the STEM fields when I was younger I could have a wall dedicated to all my Tonys." He blushed. "I don't mean to sound self-important or whatever."

"No, no. I get it. I've been drafting my Tony acceptance speech since I was ten."

The professor smiled, or at least Ted thought he did, behind that red mask. "Funny. I would've remembered if I saw a face like yours accepting a Tony."

Ted grinned, whether at the odd compliment or the idea of him accepting a Tony, or because he liked the way the professor's eyes scrunched up when he smiled. "That's one dream that never came true. I work at CCRP Technical now. Haven't set foot on a stage since college."

"Any good roles?"

Ted shrugged. "I played the lead in a show a couple of my friends wrote."

"Oh really?" Ted wasn't used to this kind of attention. The professor seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say. "What was it about?"

Ted chuckled at the memory. "Uh, it was a kind of sweet love story about two teenagers, and uh, their talking penises and vaginas."

The professor's eyes grew wide and he laughed. "Good God, I would pay good money to see that."

"It wasn't my best role. I later played the lead in another show they wrote. Basically the Little Mermaid, but in space. There were a lot of puppets. I was a bug. I still have the puppet lying around somewhere."

"Your friends wrote multiple shows? They sound talented."

Ted shrugged. "Starship was kinda the last one we wrote. Nothing ever really got traction and we split up. I'm still friends with one of the group, though. We actually work at the same office now, which is kind of sad. She could've done so much more."

The professor smiled. "You're an interesting guy, uh ..."

"Ted."

"Nice to meet you, Ted. How do you know Emma?"

"I work with her boyfriend. We're ... well, I think we're friends. I want to be friends. I'd like to be."

"Thank you," the professor said. "Not just for bringing the groceries, but for the first decent conversation I've had in weeks. You're a good guy—"

"I'm not—"

"—and if we ever meet again, please don't be scared to say hello. I think I'd quite enjoy seeing you again."

CHOOSE YOUR DESTINY!

What is Ted going to do next? Vote in the comments!

A. Ask Emma if he can bring Hidgens his groceries again next week

B. Run into Hidgens at Beanie's

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'll be getting more chapters up soon.


End file.
